Opinion
5217-20L
03-24-2022
Brian Keith Radtke, Petitioner v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent
ORDER AND DECISION
Mark V. Holmes Judge
This case is on the March 22, 2022 St. Paul, Minnesota trial calendar. It's based on a notice of determination by the IRS that it would not sustain a notice of levy (a step the IRS takes before it begins seizing a taxpayer's property), but would instead place Mr. Radtke's 2010 tax debt in currently-not-collectible status.
Despite this favorable outcome, Mr. Radtke appealed the determination to our Court. On January 19, 2022 the IRS moved for summary judgment. We offered Mr. Radtke the opportunity to respond to this motion and tried to explain to him what a summary-judgment motion is and how he should answer it.
On January 28 and again on February 2 Mr. Radtke sent letters to the Court that we took to be his responses. Concerned that these did not address the IRS's motion in understandable fashion, we called the case on March 22, 2022- sometimes taxpayers can explain themselves orally better than in writing. Mr. Radtke did not appear; counsel for the IRS did.
Background
Mr. Radtke timely filed his 2010 tax return. The IRS disagreed with this return and in 2013 sent him a notice of deficiency for slightly more than $5000. He did not start a case in Tax Court, and the IRS assessed that deficiency as an extra amount of tax that he owed. ("Assessing" a tax means recording it in the records of the IRS. When someone gets a notice of deficiency from the IRS and doesn't contest it, the IRS "assesses" the amount of the deficiency and starts to try to collect.)
Mr. Radtke did not pay that $5000 bill. With interest and penalties it had nearly doubled by 2019 when the IRS sent him a notice that it intended to seize his property to pay this debt. Mr. Radtke responded by asking for a collection-due-process hearing, and checked a box on the IRS's form that said "I cannot pay balance."
The IRS gave him a hearing. He filled out the financial-disclosure forms that the IRS sent him. And then something unusual happened-the IRS agreed with him that the reverses he's suffered over the years had left him with so little income and assets that he really couldn't afford to pay his old 2010 tax bill. The IRS put his account in "currently not collectible" status, which means that the IRS no longer threatens to take his property unless there's a big change in his financial condition.
Mr. Radtke nevertheless appealed this decision in his favor.
Analysis
When a taxpayer appeals a notice of determination we first ask whether he is challenging the amount of the tax he owes or whether he's challenging the IRS's decision to collect that amount by seizing his property or putting a lien on his assets. Mr. Radtke had his chance to contest the amount of the tax back in 2013 when the IRS sent him a notice of deficiency, and he has never challenged the amount of this tax bill.
What he did challenge was the IRS's decision to start taking his property to pay that bill. We usually review this kind of decision by asking whether the IRS abused its discretion when it made the decision to forcibly collect. And we usually look only at the "administrative record" in making our decision. What this means is that we look at the same things that the IRS looked at during the collection-due-process hearing (the "administrative record") to decide whether the IRS officer abused her discretion in upholding the lien.
As the IRS points out in its motion, however, the IRS employee who held Mr. Radtke's hearing agreed with him. He had said he couldn't pay the debt, and the IRS employee looked at his financial situation and concluded he really couldn't pay this debt. Mr. Radtke even wrote in his petition that "the IRS representative acted professionally and worked well processing my tax issue." His petition does continue to state a less focused grievance:
My anger weighs heavy against the process of law by the City, County and State governments. I am human, so my inadvertent thoughts of anger are now transferred to the Federal Courts, United States Tax Courts. My thought of, now, who is going to show me some more humility.
Working without pay, goes a long way in showing people I am able and willing to work, proving the truth in the matter, is that people do not want to pay me for the work I do. Servicing people's needs, wants and wishes by
volunteering my time, is humbling. My work is a free gift, done with good intensions.
The system of justice has now pressed on me the importance about money at every level of government. My learning from the process of law; has taught me, freedom requires money. Now my thirst for freedom is quenched by money, because money talks, so these are the right teaching, from my learning of the legal system.
We recognize this as a sincere statement of sentiment. But it does not allege any abuse of discretion or indeed any error of any kind on the part of the IRS in handling his specific request that it not levy upon his property.
It is therefore ORDERED that respondent's January 19, 2022 motion for summary judgment is granted. It is also
ORDERED and DECIDED that respondent's determination not to proceed with the collection of petitioner's federal income tax liability for the tax year 2010, as described in the Notices of Determination Concerning Collection Action(s) under Section 6320 and/or 6330, dated February 18, 2020, is sustained.